#Shirtstorm backlash: Internet steps up to defend Rosetta scientist

British scientist Matt Taylor broke down in tears when apologizing for wearing a shirt with bikini-clad women during the comet-landing mission, but much of the internet says he’s got nothing to apologize for.

The 42-year-old eccentric chief of Science for the Rosetta space
mission, wore the now-notorious Hawaiian shirt during media
interviews, just as the Philae lander spacecraft was touching
down on comet 67P following more than ten years in space.

Yet, on Twitter the achievement was quickly overshadowed. The
most prominent early critics were astrophysicist Katie Mack and
The Atlantic's science writer Rose Eveleth.

I don't care what scientists wear. But a shirt featuring women
in lingerie isn't appropriate for a broadcast if you care about
women in STEM

But, as news outlets, including the Verge (headline and lede: I don't care if you landed
a spacecraft on a comet, your shirt is sexist and ostracizing
(that's one small step for man, three steps back for humankind)
picked up the subject and published editorials against the shirt,
Taylor apologized.

The sight of an evidently stricken, tearful Taylor, provoked a
second wave of sympathetic responses.

A group of sympathisers set up a fundraising campaign to award a
gift to Matt Taylor and his team (though the Rosetta scientist
said he couldn't accept.) A petition in his support also gathered over
10,000 votes.